A team of law students from the University of Pretoria was placed fifth overall in the recent 59th Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition, hosted in Washington D.C.
The Competition is the largest and most prestigious event in the world where law faculties measure their strength against each other. This year’s case was based on international arbitration law, nuclear disarmament obligations, use of force and the capture of marine vessels.
The Pretoria team represented South Africa at the international rounds after winning all categories against the University of Johannesburg and the University of the Western Cape in February 2018.
The team, consisting of Rohula Bilankulu (LLB III), Mary-Ann Gettliffe (LLM), Sohela Surajpal (LLB II) and Thomas White (LLB IV), under the guidance of coach Gift Kgomosotho, competed against 680 law faculties representing 100 countries from around the world and made it into the top eight teams in the quarter-finals of the competition.
At the international preliminary rounds, the University of Pretoria team beat the University of Queensland and the University of Tokyo, and proceeded to the advanced rounds where they beat Indonesia and Russia.
They then lost to the United Kingdom’s Kings College and were eliminated from the quarterfinals.
The University of Queensland won the competition and the National Law School of India University was the runner-up.
The TuksLaw team won the Alona E Evans Award for Best Memorial at the White and Case International Rounds.
They ranked higher than Harvard University, University of Oxford, Stanford University and Norman Manley Law School.
They were also the highest ranked team in Africa.
The Faculty of Law of the University of Pretoria was recently ranked as the best law faculty in South Africa and on the Africa continent by Times Higher Education.
According to a very proud Dean André Boraine, the students’ achievement reaffirms the recent CHE accreditation, the Times Higher Education and QS rankings.
He conveyed his appreciation to all involved for keeping the Faculty of the world map, underlining the role of the Faculty as Africa’s Global Faculty.
